Hot Seat Watch for World Football Players, Coaches After Week May 1-4
The end of the season is rapidly approaching and managers and players all over are fighting for their futures, for silverware or for survival.
Another weekend in all the biggest domestic leagues has gone by and we've looked at the biggest issues and incidents around, coming up with another list of players and managers who have had headlines or results go against them and need to pick up quick to end the season on a high note.
Here is our hot seat watch as we move into May.
John Carver, Mike Williamson and the Rest of Newcastle United
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It's going from bad to worse for Newcastle United and John Carver, so we start there.
The weekend saw him defeated 3-0 by Leicester City, firmly dragging the Magpies down into the relegation mix on the back of eight successive league losses. It got even worse for Carver as he saw two of his players sent off and post-game comments were less than savoury.
Nigel Pearson
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Opposite Carver in the dugouts was Leicester boss Nigel Pearson, who has seen his side be excellent on the pitch but has received enormous criticism for his mannerisms and words off it.
The Foxes won 3-0 and are now two places above the drop zone, but the week leading up to the game was dominated by Pearson calling one reporter an "ostrich," "daft" and "stupid" as the manager took exception to a line of questioning.
Gary Lineker on BBC Sport has admitted a spat with the boss of his former team and Pearson has apologised for his comments, but the points in the league table are all that really matters to Leicester City right now.
Marcelino
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Over to Spain now and Villarreal boss Marcelino is becoming a worryingly familiar face in our hot seat watch, as his team's winless run continues.
That now stretches to 11 games after a 1-1 draw with relegation-threatened Deportivo La Coruna, which leaves Villarreal now six points ahead of Athletic Bilbao with three games to play, still in sixth—the last Europa League place.
The silver lining for the boss is that his team did score from open play, for the first time in eight games.
Fortaleza and Gremio Fans in Brazil
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Over in Brazil the State Championships have finally come to an end, though it was an unsavoury end in Ceara.
Sky Sports report that police had to use smoke bombs and percussion grenades to clear the pitch as supporters of Fortaleza invaded and attacked rival fans with "sticks, seats and even parts of the stage being prepared for the prize-giving ceremony."
A police chief was quoted by the same report as labelling them a "rebellious mob"—and elsewhere in Porto Alegre, Gremio fans ripped up seats as they lost the title and police used pepper spray to prevent the spread of further incidents.
Louis Van Gaal
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Manchester United look as though they'll go on to secure Champions League football this season, so it's job done to an extent—but had either of Spurs or Liverpool been remotely impressive over the past few weeks, the recent results obtained by Louis van Gaal would have seen him come under a lot more scrutiny.
Three successive losses for the Dutch head coach, the latest a 1-0 home defeat to West Brom, leave United in fourth place and just four points above Liverpool—who dropped five points against West Brom and Hull in the space of a week.
Crystal Palace, Arsenal and Hull are the sides van Gaal faces in the remainder of the season and he needs to get the team over the line.
Pippo Inzaghi
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Over in Italy it's a reappearance for AC Milan boss Pippo Inzaghi, as his team once more find themselves five games without a win and in the bottom half of Serie A.
A second-half collapse saw his team go from 0-0 to 3-0 down against Napoli in the space of six minutes at the weekend, with Mattia de Sciglio being sent off early in the game.
It has been an utterly forgettable campaign for Milan and finishing below 10th would cap off a miserable debut campaign for Inzaghi.
Gaizka Garitano
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The Newcastle United of La Liga, as they're not really known: Eibar's dramatic fall over the second half of the season has been spectacular.
Manager Gaizka Garitano racked up the points with his newly promoted team early on and they sat in eighth for a spell pre-winter break, but it has been 14 defeats in 16 since January and the Basque side look as though they are hanging everything on a last-day win at home to bottom-club Cordoba to stay up.
Now 17th and only outside the drop zone by a point, Eibar are in real trouble and even a single win from these final three might not be enough to save them.
Tom Huddlestone
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Hull City are a point above the relegation zone at present in the Premier League and are in real danger of going down, so key players underperforming at this point in the season is not what they need at all.
A 3-1 loss to Arsenal on Monday night wasn't a terrible scoreline given the form of the opposition, but more than one of those goals for the Gunners were gifted by sloppy play in midfield from Tom Huddlestone. He has deteriorated in a poor campaign from being on the fringes of the England squad to a liability to a struggling team late on this year and needs to pick up drastically in the last few weeks.
Hull play Burnley in a must-win game for both teams on Saturday.
